sorry for the strange title but i wanted to ask when did lara cry over her mum and dad because i dont remember that, someone said this on future tomb raider topic. also when was she over emotional? someone said that lara raided tombs because she is independant but not anymore after legend and anniversary. i think that this is wrong because in the core biography it says lara learned about tomb raiding when her father sent her to von croy but now the story is more in depth which i like and i think others do too.

yes this is a tomb raider thread but i didn't know where to post. soz :p i want to give my opinion and find out new things.

i like that people have different views on lara but they should not expect all this to happen in the game. a little imagination is good and if you want to here mine then read it below. :p

i always imagined that when lara was little she was bullied and didnt have good family relation and she could only turn to the environment which made her love exploring, it all began by following a big butterfly into a mystical forest. i know maybe its bad idea but thats my imagination for you. :o

but, this is strange because i like legend story and the other stories even though they are different than my own. pixels and written biographies cannot change lara for me and i think that is what makes lara so original........

thanks...........

please no argument :(

myrmaad

18-12-07, 14:49

Many of us don't like the new bio because it needlessly rewrites history, where the original history could have inspired a great storyline without patronizing us.

mizuno_suisei

18-12-07, 14:54

The only real emotion I saw relating to Lara's Mum/Dad Crisis, was when she saw her mother in the Dais, and when she realised Amelia was still alive. Which is realistic IMO. No one in real life would be like "Yeh.Ok.Mum is alive. Cool." She reacted exactly the way anyone would In that situation :)

myrmaad

18-12-07, 15:02

Well having actually lived through my own mother's death when I was a child, the whole thing felt contrived specifically to play on my emotions, which is a cheap shot in any form of dramatic entertainment. In other words, it wasn't convincingly executed well.

mizuno_suisei

18-12-07, 15:07

Im sorry to hear that you lost your mother, I almost lost my mother twice, but thats because she was too young acting too old. I dont feel it was a cheap shot at all. I myself would react in the same way, but we're all different.

Crofty_Tomb

18-12-07, 15:09

i think the last scene was like a movie. myrmad how do you mean not executed well? :o

i also dont think that the game focuses much on her parents as she only mentions them in small parts of the game. i like the main story about excalibur and mayan calender than anything else the story which includes her mum is like an add on to add depth.

im sorry to hear about your mum's death. :( lara as a child realised her mum was not dead so i dont think they want to make you feel like that.

myrmaad

18-12-07, 15:18

Thanks for your kind and polite remarks, no need to be bogged down with them, though, it's ok, even though I appreciate the sentiment.

By executed well, l'll give an example you might be able to relate to (maybe not sure).

Have you ever watched a soap opera (we have these awful ones in the US)?

The situations in them are contrived - they set up the 'drama' by making something an unnecessary secret, or write the script so that someone "just happens to be standing at the door" at the right moment to carry the drama forward, or hinge the entire drama on a simple miscommunication.

Then they build the drama around these contrived situations making them worse specifically to play on the viewer's emotions, say, the overheard secret is only half the story and the main character is dying of an incurable disease now blah blah blah.. That's a cheap shot, dramatically executed.

A lot of people buy into that crap, but it doesn't make it good story, it doesn't make it well-executed, in fact just the opposite.

That's how I felt playing Legend.

Betal

18-12-07, 15:30

sorry for the strange title but i wanted to ask when did lara cry over her mum and dad because i dont remember that, someone said this on future tomb raider topic. also when was she over emotional? someone said that lara raided tombs because she is independant but not anymore after legend and anniversary. i think that this is wrong because in the core biography it says lara learned about tomb raiding when her father sent her to von croy but now the story is more in depth which i like and i think others do too.

yes this is a tomb raider thread but i didn't know where to post. soz :p i want to give my opinion and find out new things.

i like that people have different views on lara but they should not expect all this to happen in the game. a little imagination is good and if you want to here mine then read it below. :p

i always imagined that when lara was little she was bullied and didnt have good family relation and she could only turn to the environment which made her love exploring, it all began by following a big butterfly into a mystical forest. i know maybe its bad idea but thats my imagination for you. :o

but, this is strange because i like legend story and the other stories even though they are different than my own. pixels and written biographies cannot change lara for me and i think that is what makes lara so original........

thanks...........

please no argument :(

Many people use that crap as a excuse to have something to complain about at crystal. If they don't like the story then why the hell do they look at the cutscenes? If they just play then they won't see the ¨emotional¨ Lara. IMO Lara was a badass in the game and not a emotional Emo as everyone says.

gotha-666

18-12-07, 15:31

LMFAO at the title! :vlol:

Crofty_Tomb

18-12-07, 15:34

thanks for explaining! i have seen soap operas and i understand what you mean, it just goes on and on doesn't it?

i respect your view but i think legend was not like that, i think i would describe it as a well executed sub story.

mizuno_suisei

18-12-07, 15:49

Have you ever watched a soap opera (we have these awful ones in the US)?

Gotta love the Bold and the Beautiful though. :vlol:

Gregori

18-12-07, 16:33

The only real emotion I saw relating to Lara's Mum/Dad Crisis, was when she saw her mother in the Dais, and when she realised Amelia was still alive. Which is realistic IMO. No one in real life would be like "Yeh.Ok.Mum is alive. Cool." She reacted exactly the way anyone would In that situation :)

No, she reacted how every movie and tv program says people should react in that situation. The whole thing is a contrived and cliched pile of crap.

People aren't emotional robots. They don't work with a stimulus-response, input-output like mechanism. If situation X happens, emotion Y will not always be expressed!!

People are a million times more complicated than that and its hard to predict how someone will react to traumaitic or stressful event. I've been in quite a few and I've never once reacted the way people in movies do.

Apart from that, most emotions that are real are never expressed vocally or directly. They are expressed through a person's actions, subtle gestures and facial expressions and the subtext of their conversation.

I agree somewhat with Myrmaad

jackali

18-12-07, 16:47

i think i would describe it as a well executed sub story.

Some of the problem is that most people don't see it as a sub-story. The way in which it is depicted within the game, and Lara even says it herself, is that it is what it has always been about. We know that it isn't, after all, according to her old Bio it most certainly was not, they've retconned Lara to only be a Tomb Raider because of her parents.

And with the ending of Legend we can see that it isn't merely a sub-plot but it brings the entirety of the game to a close, leading onto a sequel with the continued plot. And then in Anniversary we find that she was also doing all of that for her mother, because it was her father's quest to find the answers about her mother that kept him going, and indeed Lara afterwards.

Therefore people react badly towards it because it is changing Lara from the Lara we all knew, who even Toby Gard described as a steely woman who would sooner shoot you than look at you, to a Lara fuelled by a quest to find out about her mother, taking up the mantle of her father.

To be honest, I like the "new" Lara more than her previous "incarnation". She feels more human - which has made tha game more "livable" for someone like me. I find it totally understandable that Lara behaves the way she does, after all, would something like that happen to me, I believe I'd be doing exactly the same thing. Even the most ice hearted murderers (as some of ppl around her want her to be) have emotions, have a soft spot, etc.
I wonder, how many of those saying that the new bio is totally crap, would do the same in her place?
No offense meant. Just wanted to say my opinion. Nothing else. (and also, had a bad day)

Nannonxyay

18-12-07, 19:12

I'm not specifically talking to you when I say this, or trying to sound rude or anything. But it's just my opinion.

Lara didn't cry. She just expressed emotions. The same way she expressed her anger and fear. She's meant to be more realistic, she's meant to be more like a human not a machine. I don't see why everyone's complaining about it, I like Lara to show a little emotion, as it fits in with the story line and makes us empathies with her character. If you want to be a cold blooded killer, go play Grand Theft Auto or Man Hunt.

Angel_14

18-12-07, 19:30

Let me tell something funny:

Expressing sadness is not what makes someone human. Ever watched House MD? Look at the character: He's mean, grumpy, sarcastic, cold and doesn't really have any sympathy. Yet, he and his show has millions of fans round the world. Why? Surely not because it's the 100th TV show revolving around a hospital. Because House has an unique character. A behaviour and attitude that you don't expect a doctor to have. But does the fact that he doesn't get sad/frightened makes him less human? Not for me, no.

Lara is the same. She had the attitude that you don't expect a woman (especially if she's facing a T-rex) to have. She was sarcastic, cold and had no sympathy whatsoever, just like House. She had an unmitigated personality. Now, I look at her and the first image that pops into my mind is between Harry Potter and Walt Disney. She wasn't less than now, she was different. She didn't get sad because there wasn't a reason to be sad in the older games. We can't compare TR1 and TR7 Lara because their desires, aspirations are different. How do you or anyone know that TR1 Lara would or wouldn't care if her parents' life was in trouble?

Thank you for listening me :)

Legend 4ever

18-12-07, 20:05

Some of the problem is that most people don't see it as a sub-story. The way in which it is depicted within the game, and Lara even says it herself, is that it is what it has always been about. We know that it isn't, after all, according to her old Bio it most certainly was not, they've retconned Lara to only be a Tomb Raider because of her parents.

And with the ending of Legend we can see that it isn't merely a sub-plot but it brings the entirety of the game to a close, leading onto a sequel with the continued plot. And then in Anniversary we find that she was also doing all of that for her mother, because it was her father's quest to find the answers about her mother that kept him going, and indeed Lara afterwards.

Therefore people react badly towards it because it is changing Lara from the Lara we all knew, who even Toby Gard described as a steely woman who would sooner shoot you than look at you, to a Lara fuelled by a quest to find out about her mother, taking up the mantle of her father.
Really good point. :tmb:

Still, I don't mind than story since the only thing important to me is Lara and new TR games, nothing else.

Ward Dragon

18-12-07, 21:44

I don't mind that Lara has emotions. I don't like how her emotions have become such a central focus of Legend and TRA, and I don't like how Lara seems to not understand herself or have control of herself.

In Legend, she explicitly states that digging into her own past is what tomb raiding has always been about. That wasn't true in the first six games, so I don't like how Legend just ignored everything that came before it. Even in TRA when she says her famous, "I only play for sport" line, it's cancelled out because Natla convinces her to look for the Scion by reminding her that it's what her father wanted in order to find out what happened to her mother.

Then, later on in TRA, there is so much depth they could have explored with the Scion being used to control evolution and Natla wanting to force the human race to become stronger. They could have taken that scenario from TR1 and developed it with Lara being intrigued by Natla's goals but unwavering in her conviction that it was the wrong way to fix the world. Instead, they made Lara selfish and only interested in the Scion for what it might tell her about her parents. Similarly, Natla lost all of her twisted ideals and became just another stereotypical villain who wanted power and immortality. Both characters, Lara and Natla, lost all of the depth that they had in TR1 just because the story became more focused on them and their selfish desires.

About Lara not being in control of herself-- in Legend's ending, Lara acts totally irrationally. All through the game she's claiming that she wants to still be friends with Amanda. Then she murders Amanda's boyfriend (which probably was justified, but it's still understandable why Amanda would get angry) and beats the crap out of Amanda. Afterwards, she doesn't even check to see if Amanda is still alive. She just steals Amanda's artifact and then repeats the exact same mistake she made when she was little. Amanda regains consciousness in time to warn Lara to pull out the sword before the dais explodes. Lara doesn't listen, the dais explodes, and then Lara gets angry at Amanda for warning her? If Amelia hadn't overheard the warning, then her dais would have exploded and she would have died, along with little Lara. So, Amanda was trying to save Lara and herself, and she accidentally saved Amelia and little Lara. For this, Lara goes psychotic on her, blames her for everything, and assaults her while she kneels there helpless???

In TRA, Larson comes up to her without a weapon in his hands and says he doesn't want to fight, he's just doing his job, he thinks she's a good person who wouldn't murder someone, etc. Lara is presented in TRA as having absolutely no clue who she really is, so when Larson gives her his interpretation, she freaks out and becomes desperate to prove him wrong. To this end, she murders him in completely unjustified circumstances. Then afterwards, she realizes how totally stupid and out-of-control she was and she nearly breaks down, which by all rights should have gotten her killed because she went up to people who actually did want to kill her and she didn't have the strength to pull the trigger. Lucky for her, Kold and Kid were even more messed up than she was, so she survived due to no strength of her own.

I don't mind Lara having emotions. I mind Lara being portrayed as an emotional wreck who is so unstable that she shoots people (or at them) just because she's angry at herself.

Gregori

18-12-07, 23:05

I'm not specifically talking to you when I say this, or trying to sound rude or anything. But it's just my opinion.

Lara didn't cry. She just expressed emotions. The same way she expressed her anger and fear. She's meant to be more realistic, she's meant to be more like a human not a machine. I don't see why everyone's complaining about it, I like Lara to show a little emotion, as it fits in with the story line and makes us empathies with her character. If you want to be a cold blooded killer, go play Grand Theft Auto or Man Hunt.

She is actually quite like a machine in TRA/Legend. The writers decided that she should be "Sad" for Reason X, because reason X always makes a character "Sad".

There are more human emotions than emotions. Not all human emotions are sappy one's either. Most people don't even directly express their emotions.

I like to use the example of Indiana Jones. He is a quite likeable character without the writers using cheap emotional ploys to justify his adventures. He has killed quite a few people throughout the films, but I doubt anyone would seriously describe him a cold heated serial killer.

MikeAC

19-12-07, 00:44

Similarly, Natla lost all of her twisted ideals and became just another stereotypical villain who wanted power and immortality. Both characters, Lara and Natla, lost all of the depth that they had in TR1 just because the story became more focused on them and their selfish desires.
Disagree on Natla. Her goals were practically the same - using the Scion to create an advanced army which will bring power (be it the Seventh Age, or the territorial rages to strengthen Atlantis) The only difference is the original was focusing more on the genetic engineering while Anniversary was more focused on the big picture.

Ward Dragon

19-12-07, 01:12

Disagree on Natla. Her goals were practically the same - using the Scion to create an advanced army which will bring power (be it the Seventh Age, or the territorial rages to strengthen Atlantis) The only difference is the original was focusing more on the genetic engineering while Anniversary was more focused on the big picture.

In the original, Natla was focused on her experiments and the science behind it, and she wanted to strengthen the human race in her own sick and twisted way. Lara seemed to understand where she was coming from but still firmly disagreed with her methods. In Anniversary, Natla was totally focused on herself and gaining immortality and power. Similarly, Lara was totally focused on herself and gaining knowledge about her parents. Neither of them was interesting to me in TRA because they didn't say anything that really made me think.

TR1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_wXc6YyKvI

TRA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_48FA9wODoA

The TR1 cutscene feels so much more epic to me because it focuses on the fate of the entire world, whereas the TRA cutscene focuses only on those two people.

Gregori

19-12-07, 01:25

In the original, Natla was focused on her experiments and the science behind it, and she wanted to strengthen the human race in her own sick and twisted way. Lara seemed to understand where she was coming from but still firmly disagreed with her methods. In Anniversary, Natla was totally focused on herself and gaining immortality and power. Similarly, Lara was totally focused on herself and gaining knowledge about her parents. Neither of them was interesting to me in TRA because they didn't say anything that really made me think.

TR1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_wXc6YyKvI

TRA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_48FA9wODoA

The TR1 cutscene feels so much more epic to me because it focuses on the fate of the entire world, whereas the TRA cutscene focuses only on those two people.

To top it off, TRA's final scene and plot is ripped of Return of The Jedi!!

rowanlim

20-12-07, 12:24

I think that the Lara-mom-dad-more emotion part of TRL was different & something most (okay maybe ALL) TR fans are NOT accustomed to...:p

I do prefer Lara to be LESS emotional...the last TRL cutscene was "disturbing" :rolleyes: